As it is generally known, instant messaging (IM) systems are often used as a pivotal tool in modern collaborative work environments. Instant messaging applications allow geographically dispersed groups of users to work together, while creating and sharing documents and artifacts. Teams of business users come together through the instant messaging application, as an alternative or supplement to using electronic mail applications, in order to work on a common task. However, in existing systems, members of a work team that interact using instant messaging while sharing a document can quickly get into a situation in which no one knows which team member has the latest version of the document.
In previous systems, individuals have been allowed to attach a file to an instant message, and thus send the file to one or more of their instant messaging buddies. After the file is sent through such existing systems, it goes out of the sending user's control. In some situations, file sharing has been provided at the operating system level, or in a Web oriented storage application or service, such as the DropBox system provided by DropBox, Inc., or the Cattail Web Site developed by International Business Machines Corporation. While these existing systems do provide file sharing across geographically dispersed users, they operate outside the preferred, primary collaboration environment of instant messaging, and accordingly require extra work to manage control over who can access the shared resources and who controls them at any given time.
It would therefore be desirable to have a new automated solution that effectively supports sharing of files through an instant messaging system.